SACRAMENTO, CA - The rivers are high, the snowpack is up, the reservoirs are full. It certainly seems to make sense that after three years, Gov. Brown is going to declare the drought officially over. But not everybody thinks so.
"It seems like it's a little premature," said Sacramento resident Ernie Thornberg. "You know, if we have this (rain) for a couple of years in a row or that snowfall for a couple years in a row, then that makes sense. But you know the demands for water keep going up."
Still, even if the drought is officially over, that doesn't mean the call for conservation is over as well.
"We do have a good water supply," said Christina Jimenez with the California Department of Water Resources. "We have to just remember we have cyclical weather here and it's constantly changing and to conserve and continue to plan for any type of water year."
There is also a state mandate in place known as "20 by 2020."
"It was a bill passed in 2009 that establishes a mandate for communities to cut back water use by 20 percent" by the year 2020, said Kenneth Payne, Chief of Environmental/Water Resources Development for the city of Folsom.
Sacramento is one community that will keep its water restrictions, such as odd number/even number watering days, in place. But in other communities, like Roseville and Folsom, restrictions are voluntary. Even in those communities, however, city officials are encouraging conservation.
by Jonathan Mumm, jmumm@news10.net
News10/KXTV